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BrickBuilder

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Generalities

1. First Impressions (Score: 14/20):
   So, when i first entered your forum, i immediatly noticed you have a rather nice lego theme going on, your forums background is like the top of a lego brick, plus the RSS and Twitter icons on the left hand side of your forum are like lago bricks too, i love the delicate little touches you have on your forum, they make it stand out from all the rest! One thing i did notice though is that your forum icons are not lego bricks, they are square, but they dont have the lego brick design on them, which kind of ruins the conistancy of your forum. But, one other good thing i noticed is that you have a portal page, it may not be the first thing your members see when they enter the forum, but atleast you have one! And that brings me onto another suggestion to improve your forum, i believe you should make the portal page the first page members see when they enter the forum as the page can be used to welcome your members to the forum by installing a custom widget with an attractive welcome message on thats stands out from the rest of the page. its always nice for your members and guests to be welcomed into the forum so why not take advantage of what you have avalible and add one . But now onto the things you have in your portal already, and really, there is not much too see, there are a few statistical widgets down the right hand side of the page plus a section for the latest news/topics down the left hand side which appears to be taking up 3/4 of the space available. i suggest you add some more, interesting widgets too your portal, like a clock so your members can see the time, or maybe a flash game so they have something to do! make sure the game is themed to the purpose of your forum, in this case, you would need to find a lego based game. I find having an interesting portal really improves the first impressions people get when they enter your forum.
   
2. Categories & Forums (Score: 4/10):
   So, going on to your forums categories and forums, I see you have a massive amount of categories, i counted 8 of them! I belive this too be too many as it is making your forum look unproffesional, crowded and disorganised. You should onyl have around 4 or 5 categories in a well organized forum, 6 would be pushing it, but the fact you have 8 just shows how much you need to do some re-arranging of your forum. With 8 categories, i would expect a minimum of 24 forums for a well organized index page, but you only have 13, which reinforces the fact that you need to re-arrange your forum going on the basis that you should only have a minimum of 3 forums in any category, or a max of around 8. I will suggest a way you could re-arrange your forum to make it more organized which is shown below: (categories are shown in bold)
   
   News & Announcements
   Announcements
   News
   Introductions
   
   Bricks, Bricks and More Bricks
   General Brick Discussion
   Contests
   Reviews
   My Latest Creation
   Building Tips & Discussion
   
   Off Topic
   The Lounge
   Comics
   Brickmaster's Blog
   
   Tech Support & Suggestions
   Tech Support
   Suggestions
   FeedBack - Members can feedback about the forum as a whole
   
   See how i've layed it out better? ive reduced it from 8 categories to onyl 4, welst still making everything fit. I also added a feedback forum for members to comment on the forum as a whole and whether they like it or not. Now on to the forum descriptions, and you have some short, but descriptive descriptions, i'd say there pretty decent and serve there purpose by telling your members what a certain forum is for, so good work there! Now on to the forums ou actually have at the moment, and they all seem to carry there purpose, plus seem to be needed, except for 1, that being the one called BrickMaster's Blog, im not getting the idea of its purpose at all, maybe you could think about getting rid of that as its quite personal. So, Overall, your categories and forums need re-organizing to make more logical sense, but, in contrast, your forum descriptions and purposes are good!
   

Generalities total ::18/30


Forum Style

1. Major Graphics (Score: 9/10):
   
   Banner: (5/5)
   Well, i really like your banner, its really in tune with the rest of your forum and its purpose, your theme is for lego, and your banner is constructed from lego bricks, really great idea! Its very well designed too, i mean, i cannto find a single error with the design work of it, no blurry spots or any distroted area's just a nice, simple, clean banner! I really think its one of the best banners i've seen in a long time, it fits your forums theme perfectly, just the right size for a banner too be and looks great overall too . Moreover, just to top things off, the text font and your you have used stands out extremely well against the rest of your forum and the brick it is placed on in the banner. Nothing more to say here, you have a great banner with everything i would expect a banner to have in it.
   Navigation Bar: (4/5)
   Your navigation bar is good too, its in a sleek black design to match the rest of your forum, which it does well, plus it has that common glass effect which adds a cool aspect to the banner, always a ncie design feature to have with a banner. Moreover, i like it even more because when you hover your cursor over the seperate buttons, they go a slight grey colour but with the same glassed effect, i think this is some great code work and adds to the overall design aspect of your forum, im impressed. But, there's always a but, it doesn't really match the other aspects of your forum very well, including its purpose. I'll explain more.... basically, your banner has the brick design, your forums background has the brick design and even the RSS and Twitter buttons have the brick design, so i was kind of expecting the navigation bar to be in a brick design too, but it wasn't to be. Really, to get full marks in this section, it really needs to match the rest of your forum perfectly. So, i suggest you add a brick effect to the navigation bar but still keep the black colour the glass effect to the buttons.
   
2. Images & Icons (Score: 8/10):
   Well, i was really expecting your forum icons to be like the rest of the forum, a brick design, but its the same as the navigation bar, you haven't designed it that way! You have the same glass effect as you had on the navigation bar, on the forum icons, but this time in a green colour, not black. I like the fact you have some variation in colour between the aspects of your forum because it reminds you of the fact that lego bricks come in an array of colours too. Good link to the purpose there. But, i really wished you would of had a two brick design for these icons (You will understand what i mean by a two brick, its lego terms ). But, onto how you have your forum icons at the moment, and your "New Posts" forum icon is a solid bright green quare with a black border around it, pretty decent plus very easily distiniguishable from the "No New Posts" Icon which appears to be a darker green, glass effect icon with the same shape and the same black border around it, so much darker in colour. Also, for your "Forum Locked" icon, you have a glass effected grey icon with a black border around it which matches your navigation bar like all the other icons do too . So, the design of your forum icons isn't actually bad, just could be improved by giving them a brick design. Now onto your topic icons, and you have pretty much the same icons as the forum icons, but with a few added ones for the different purposes, for the popular topics, there is a red square for both the "No New Posts popular" icon and the "New Posts Popular" Icon, which is a bit weird considering i was expecting a darker red icon with the glass effect so it fits with the other icons so to make more sense. So just to help you out, i made it for you, feel free to use this, it will help...
   
   
   
   The link: http://i68.servimg.com/u/f68/14/38/66/45/icon_f10.png.
   
   The other icon you have was for a Locked Topic, and that one matches all the other icons but this time is dark grey with a glass effect for "No New Posts [Locked]" and light grey with no glass effect for the "New Posts [Locked]" Icon, so as good as the others. So Overall, your icons are good, the only way they could be improved would be to make them into a brick design, for example, this is on i quickly designed...
   
   
   
   The Link: http://i68.servimg.com/u/f68/14/38/66/45/icon_f12.png
   
   
   
3. Forum Layout & Colour Scheme (Score: 6/10):
   Well, as i have said earlier in this review, your forums colour scheme is amazing, everything seems to match, you have the navigation bar matching the forum icons with style, the forums background matching the category background colours, plus, the brick effect is consistant with your banner, the RSS and the Twitter buttons, which i think is great. But, thats where the minor problem comes, which is that your forum and topic icons do not share the same brick effect that your banner does, neither does your navigation bar! This can be simple sorted out though, all you would have to do is add a brick effect to each button/icon seperatly to make your forums theme absolutely perfect in everyway, the icons you have at the moment are great, there's no denying that, but you could make them perfect by adding the all important brick effect to them. Now onto your forums layout, and really, this isn't very good, you have all your categories and forums mixed up, and the widgets in the portal are the opposite side to where the widgets are in the main forum, which isn't very conistant. So nothing more to say here, you know what to do But, as i have said, your forums colour scheme is simply superb.
   

Forum Style total :: 23/30

Usergroups

1. Population of Groups (Score:5/10):
   
   
2. Staff Groups / User Groups (Score: 5/10):
   

Usergroups :: 10/20


Forum Activity

1. Post/Member Ratio & Quantity (Score: 10/10):
   
   
   
2. Users Active (Score: 7/10):
   
   
   

Forum Activity total :: 17/20


Other


Grade Legend: A- Outstanding! B-Very Good C-Good D-Fair/Average E-Poor F-Very Poor


•Aestheticism:

•Organization:

•Originality:

•Forum Language:

•Professionalism:

•Rules and Terms of Services:

•Cleanliness of the Index/Portal:

•Creativity:

•Forum Features:

•Staff Moderation and Activity:

Others average:

Overall Marking: 62/100
You have passed!

Your Grade: C

What could be done to improve your forum:


The best thing I like about your forum:


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